Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pastoral | 2014 | Andre Alexis | Buy |
| 2 | Fifteen Dogs | 2015 | Andre Alexis | Buy |
| 3 | The Hidden Keys | 2016 | Andre Alexis | Buy |
| 4 | Days by Moonlight | 2019 | Andre Alexis | Buy |
| 5 | Ring | 2021 | Andre Alexis | Buy |
The Quincunx Cycle is a series of five novels by Andre Alexis published between 2014 and 2021. Inspired by Thomas Browne’s The Garden of Cyrus, Alexis designed the cycle so that each novel explores a different theme through a different literary form: pastoral (Pastoral), apologue (Fifteen Dogs), romance (Ring), quest narrative (The Hidden Keys), and ghost story (Days by Moonlight). All five are set in or around Southern Ontario.
The best known of the five is Fifteen Dogs (2015), in which the Greek gods Hermes and Apollo wager on whether animals could live happily if given human intelligence. They grant consciousness to fifteen dogs kennelled at a Toronto veterinary clinic, and the story follows the consequences. The novel won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Ring, published last in 2021, serves as the cycle’s center point, weaving together characters from all four preceding novels around a long poem about love.